Improve Hydrological Forecast Model

4DM has recently completed a project on assessing and improving performance of the Mattagami River Watershed Model (MRWM). The MRWM, developed by 4DM for Ontario Power Generation, is a WATFLOOD-based hydrological model which is designed to serve for (1) operational flow forecasting, implemented as part of the HydrologiX II web-based decision support system, and (2) water balance, climate impacts and water availability studies in the Mattagami River basin.

The project focused on advanced calibration and validation of the MRWM, incorporation of the Canadian Precipitation Analysis (CaPA) data, and robust automated model calibration using the OSTRICH optimization engine. As part of the optimization, we performed single objective calibration for streamflow, as well as two-objective model calibration for (a) streamflow (12 gauges) and (b) reservoir inflow (6 gauges) using a Pareto-based algorithm. Figure 1 and Figure 2 present examples of optimization results.

The calibrated model was able to achieve the average Nash-Sutcliffe model efficiency of 0.84 for streamflow (0.64 – 0.95 at individual gauges), and 0.77 for reservoir inflow (0.66 – 0.93 at individual gauges) over the 2002-2016 period.

The optimized MRWM is currently being deployed to the HydrologiX II system for use in operational flow and inflow forecasting. HydrologiX II has been utilized in the Mattagami River basin since 2014 for providing fully automated daily flow and inflow forecasts, situational awareness, monitoring, notification and data dissemination services.